Will Jesus Christ return invisibly, to secretly "rapture"
or take away the Church to heaven BEFORE the coming great
tribulation?

A common idea today among fundamentalists is that Christ
may return invisibly, secretly, "at any moment" to "rapture" or
"catch away" the Church before the great tribulation and the
appearance of a superhuman "Antichrist." This secret return
of Christ they call "the first phase" of Christ's second coming.

Jesus, we are asked to believe, may suddenly descend from
heaven this very night! But He will stop in mid-air.

Immediately, the righteous dead will be raised and all true
Christians who are alive will be "translated." Then Christ
returns to heaven-- some say for 31/2 year-- others say
for seven (7) years.

During this period, according to this teaching, God will vent
His wrath upon the world by permitting an Antichrist to deceive
the nations and torture all who won't submit to Him. This time
of torture they call indiscriminately the "tribulation" and "Day
of the Lord."

Then, they say, the "second phase” of Christ's coming will
occur. Jesus will come visibly, in power and glory, with the
saints, to conquer Antichrist.

But is this what the Bible really teaches? Are there "two phases"
to the second coming of Jesus Christ? Will He return secretly? Why
is the word "rapture" not mentioned once in the entire Bible if this
theory is true? Isn’t it time you learned the truth?

Jesus Christ has given us a time sequence of events soon to occur.
This sequence you will find in Matthew 24, Mark 13 and Luke 21.
These three chapters contain the order of events at the close of this
age of man's rule. Notice what Jesus told His disciples.

Following false teachers proclaiming a false gospel, yet coming
in the name of Christ, would be wars, famines and pestilences,
occurring in that order. Then there would be what? The
secret return of Christ to take away the Church in a secret rapture
immediately before the tribulation? No! Just the opposite! Here are
Jesus' own words: (Matt. 24:6-9) "And ye shall hear of wars and
rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must
come to pass, but the end is not yet. For nation shall rise against
nation, and kingdom against kingdom: and there shall be famines,
and pestilences, and earthquakes, in divers places. All these are the
beginning of sorrows. Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted,
and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My names'
sake."

Did you notice that? Jesus' own disciples, those who follow Him,
"YOU”, are to be delivered up to tribulation! The disciples of
Jesus could not be in tribulation if they were secretly raptured to
heaven before the tribulation and if only unbelievers remained on
earth. Besides, Jesus said that it is "for His name's sake" that the
nations would hate you. This obviously must be referring to
believers, not nonbelievers.

Mark records the same statement of Jesus: "And ye shall be hated
of all for my name's sake" (Mark 13:13). A martyrdom of Christians!
Luke records the same (Luke 21:12, 17).

Is the tribulation the time of God's wrath? This is another great
mistake that all who believe in the rapture theory have carelessly
taken for granted without proof. Some believe that the "tribulation"
and the "Day of the Lord" represent the same period of time.

The Bible reveals that the tribulation is the wrath of Satan, the
wicked spirit ruler of this present age. You can read of that in
Revelation the 12th chapter.

Notice! The devil is angry. He is responsible for the persecution of
the Christians. Satan hates God's way. So does this world. It is
Satan's world. Little wonder that it hates the good news of the
Kingdom of God.

What did Jesus say would immediately happen after Satan's
wrath, the tribulation? The rapturists would have you believe that
the "second phase" of Jesus' return would immediately occur. This
is not what Jesus said. Notice: "Immediately after the tribulation of
those days shall the sun be darkened, and the moon shall not give her
light, and the stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the
heavens shall be shaken" (Matt. 24:29).

Now turn to (Joel 2:31) "The sun shall be turned into darkness, and
the moon into blood BEFORE the great and terrible day of the Lord
comes." The "day of the Lord" is the time God steps in to world af-
fairs directly. It is the time of His wrath against the nations!
Read I Thessalonians 5:2. This is not speaking of the rapture, but
of the time of God’s intervention in world affairs very shortly before
Jesus returns.

Compare this with Revelation 6:12-13, 16-17: "The sun
became black as sackcloth of hair, and the whole moon became as
blood; and the stars of the heaven fell to earth, And they said
to the mountains and to the rocks, 'Fall upon us, and hide us from
the face of the one sitting on the throne, and from the wrath of the
Lamb: because the great day of their wrath is come; and who can
stand? “This day of God's wrath comes unexpectedly, like a thief
in the night. The tribulation, however, occurs before the "day of the
Lord's wrath"!

Notice that during this "day of the Lord" the trumpets begin to
sound (Rev. 8:6). "And the seven angels that had the seven trumps
{ trumpets } prepared themselves to sound." Trumpets are a symbol
of war. This is the time when God's restraint over the nations is
loosed, when the nations war upon one another with horrifying new
weapons till they learn that God alone can bring peace and that His
Laws make life worth living.

Notice, now, an amazing fact which very few have grasped!
What happens when the seventh and last of these trumpets is sounded?
"And the seventh angel sounded; and the great voices in heaven came
saying, 'The Kingdom of the world is become our Lord's and His
Christ's, and He shall reign unto the ages of ages,. We thank
thee, Lord God, the Almighty, who is and who was, because thou hast
taken thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were wroth,
and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be
judged, and that thou shouldst give reward unto thy servants the pro-
phets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great:
and shouldst destroy them which destroy the earth' " (Rev. 11:15,
17-18).

Notice that this is the time for the prophets to receive their reward.
It is the time of the resurrection! And this, remember, occurs at the
seventh or last trump!

Now compare this with ( I Cor. 15: 51-52 ) " Lo, I tell you a
mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall be changed, in a
moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trump: for the trumpet"
the seventh and last trumpet ... "shall sound, and the dead" ...
and that includes the prophets ( Rev. 11:18) ... "shall be raised
incorruptible, and we shall be changed."

Do you grasp the significance of this scripture? After the
tribulation, after the intervening heavenly signs, during the DAY of
the Lord,
at the sounding of the seventh trump the dead are
resurrected and those alive, who believe and practice the truth,
are changed from mortal to
immortal.

There is no secret rapture before the tribulation. The dead are not
resurrected twice! Those who are still living are not changed to
immortality twice! There is not the slightest indication of a "Secret
Rapture" and a resurrection of the saints before the tribulation.

But this is not all! Now open your Bible to ( Matt. 24:30) "And then
after the heavenly signs which follow the tribulation, (not before), but
after the tribulation and during the Day of the Lord, "Then shall all
the tribes of the earth mourn, and shall see the Son of Man coming in
the clouds of the heaven with power and great glory. And He shall send
forth His angels with a great trumpet, and they shall gather together His
elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other."

This verse pictures the second coming of Christ, at the seventh
and last trump, the great trump. And it is the time of the resurrection!
The ELECT are gathered together. Who are the "elect" or chosen ones?

Luke 18:7 tell us: "And shall not God avenge His elect, that cry to
Him day and night?" Any concordance will provide you with scriptures
(I Peter 1:1-2; Col. 3:12; Rom. 8:33, etc.) proving that true Christians
are the ELECT. These are the ones to be gathered
when Jesus returns with the sound of a great trump!

Paul also mentions the same tremendous noise of the 7th trumpet
that will rend the air at Christ's return. "For the Lord himself shall
descend from heaven with a shout, with an archangel's voice, and with
the trump of God: AND THE DEAD IN Christ shall rise first; then we
that are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the
clouds to meet the Lord in the air" ( IThes 4:16-17).

Did you notice that this is the time of the resurrection? It is the time
of the LAST TRUMP, according to I Cor. 15:52. Again, in Revelation
11:15, 17-18 the seventh or last trumpet is also the time of the resur-
rection. And the time order of Jesus' Mount Olivet prophecy and of the
book of Revelation places the sounding of the 7th trumpet and the
resurrection after the tribulation, at the very climax of the "day of the
Lord"! These verses describe the same trumpet, not different ones.

There is no possible room for a "secret rapture."

One famous text used to contradict these plain passages of scripture
is the 14th verse of I Thessalonians 4, "For if we believe that Jesus
died and rose, even so them also that are fallen asleep"…. the dead
are asleep in their grave, not awake in heaven-- according to Paul,
“will God through Jesus bring with Him." This verse is supposed to
teach that 31/2 or 7 years before Christ returns a "secret rapture"
occurs; the dead are secretly taken to heaven and now they return with
Jesus from heaven.

But is this what the scripture says? How is Jesus going to bring
those who are asleep in death with Him? Notice: "For this we say to
you by the word of the Lord, that we that are alive, that are left unto
the presence (or coming) of the Lord, shall in no wise precede the
them that are fallen asleep. For the Lord Himself shall descend from
heaven." With the saints? NO! "... And the dead in Christ
shall rise first" (verses 15-16).

Notice, that Jesus, with the angels from heaven, descends toward
the earth, not with the saints, but in order to resurrect the saints!
"The Lord shall descend... and the dead shall rise"!

After Jesus descends toward earth the dead rise first! They meet
Christ in the air. Now the dead are with Christ in the air, the
atmosphere surrounding this earth. "Then we that are alive and
remain shall together with them be caught up in the clouds"
(verse 17). We, too, shall be together in the air with those who have
just been raised, those whom Jesus is bringing with Him to this
earth. Notice that being "caught up"..... Paul does not say "raptured
up" .... occurs after the tribulation, at the last trump when Jesus
descends visibly in power and glory.

How did Jesus leave this earth? "He was taken up, and a cloud
received Him out of their sight"... the disciples were looking at Him,
and while they looked steadfastly toward heaven as He went up, "Be-
hold, two men stood by them in white apparel; which also said, 'Ye
men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven? This same
Jesus, which is taken up from you into heaven, shall so come in like
manner as ye have seen him go into heaven. Then they returned to
Jerusalem from the mount called Olivet" (Acts 1:9-12).

Were there two phases of Jesus' ascension? NO! Then there will not
be two phases to His return, He will come in the same manner in which
He left.

Notice the prophecy concerning the fulfillment of this very promise:
"Behold, the day of the Lord cometh ... His feet shall stand in that
day upon the mount of Olives" (Zech. 14: 1-4).

There is no secret rapture before the tribulation or at any other time!
The resurrection is at the mighty sound of the 7th trump in the day of
God's wrath which follows the tribulation. The tribulation is not the
Day of the Lord. There are two separate and distinct periods of time.
Christ does not return in two phases, one secret, the other visible.
He returns in the same manner as He ascended, and that was no
secret rapture! He ascended visible, He will descend visible.

Some, of course, seize on minor scriptures and misinterpret them
to attempt to prove their theory. Take Rev. 4:1-2, for example. This,
we are told, represents the rapture. But these two verses do not say that!
John saw the prophecy in the Book of Revelation unfolded in heaven
because that is where Jesus is, not because of a secret rapture!

One prominent writer attempts to prove that II Thessalonians
2:7-8 refers to the rapture. His theory is that this prophecy has not yet
begun to be fulfilled, that Christ must come first "to rapture the Church
before the tribulation."

But notice the first part of verse 7: "For the mystery of iniquity
doth already work"-- even in Paul's day! Notice the time sequence!
An apostasy shall have come first and the man of sin shall have been
revealed before the day of Christ.

Will you be deceived into believing the false doctrine of a rapture?
Will you go on blindly believing in the traditions of men and the
theories they have advanced without proof? Read your Bible! Check
carefully! "Prove all things (IThess. 5:21). Your very life is at stake!

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